


Columbines for You

by UpsetFawn



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I'll use the dream no more ending as the basis for most of my short stories, Post-Dream No More, Vessel OC (Hollow Knight) - Freeform, no comfort cause maple's all alone at this point in time, yep all aboard the angst train once again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:42:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25117834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UpsetFawn/pseuds/UpsetFawn
Summary: As the blighted dreams started to subside, and quiet begins to grip the ruins once more, a vessel makes trek to have counsel with the White Lady. No voice they may have, but it is their will and mind that makes their statement and feelings clear.
Kudos: 10





	Columbines for You

**Author's Note:**

> columbine flowers are quite a petty flower to give someone, you're basically telling that person that they've betrayed and abandoned you, and is the perfect flower to give the white lady after she literally up and deserted all of her children.

The dark columns were dimly lit, any sense of light that perforated from the gardens above was quenched. Not as dark as the Abyss that now laid silent deep beneath the kingdom, but enough to make a bug's eyes squint in the dim darkness. Even then, they wouldn't see much, only dripping moss and decaying foliage, presuming the fact that there was nothing here to be bothered with. But the stranger that landed with a thud, knew all too well where they were. They were a vessel, much like their siblings who were now so very still, unmoving, rounded protrusions on the top of their head, each with two tufts facing inwards on themselves. Then lower, on what would be considered their cheeks, were two elongated protrusions, very much similar to feeling whiskers on those from the mammal families. A dull blue scarf wrapped around their neck and even duller cloak, which hugged their body snugly. Behind them, two round-pointed wings pulled against the ground, comically too big for their small form, but it did not bother them in the slightest. Yes, they were operational indeed, but they had quickly learned that they were more suited for small glides than actual flight; the size difference was too big of a gap. Part of them hoped that one day their body to wing ratio would settle their differences.

On top of their head, where a crumbling orange maple leaf would sit, instead a softly glowing, pale white flower had taken its home there.

  
They were at the very bottom now, where a new mystical light source began to set in, long sweeping roots, glowing just as softly as the flower on top of their head. They guided their path into a great antechamber, where a lone figure sat. She was much bigger than they, constricted oh so tightly and the horns on her head branching this way and that, anchoring her quite firmly in place. It didn't take long for the White Lady to open clouded blue eyes to address the new presence in the room.

  
"So another of my offspring has found my resting place." She began, staring blankly at the wall before her. "Pray tell, you too know of her fall? The one who has plagued us so for so long, dethroned by two of your siblings."

  
There is no response, but the Lady feels the energy in the room around her stir. Ah, so this one could commune, a horrid flaw. Calm, sincere, firm. They knew.

  
"Then I wonder," A hum escaped from her. "What draws you here so? There is nothing for you here, nor well boon to bestow upon you. Too late you have arrived to receive such a thing, but to know that my contribution to her undoing has relieved some of my sin."

  
The air changed again, thick, drowning. They didn't like what they heard, they wanted to know something. They were angry. Very faintly, she could hear the shifting of wings behind the vessel, flaring with fury behind them. If she could see their disposition, the White Lady would laugh.

  
"What is your query then?" The room ached as her head barely tilted to its side. "Although I cannot guarantee any clear clarity."

  
Confusion, mixed feelings, mostly of betrayal. Why?

  
"You ask why, but I'm abashed that you already know your answer." She sighed. "You are not like them, not perfect, not pure. You hold wishes close to your heart and your instinct pushes you forward. Unlike they, who followed orders to a fault, but the first I admit was poorly judged. Perhaps-"

  
Anger flared, almost drowning the room in the substance. It was not the answer that they sought, or perchance they did not like what they heard? Yes, it must be the latter.

  
"Your animosity is clear, my child, but know this. You, and those that were birthed to remove the blighted light, were but a means to an end. I could not afford myself to get attached, or else our stratagem would fail. The case that I have no true child to my name wounds me so."

  
The White Lady felt something smack into her face, pollen flitting and a soft scent reaching her. Petals soon scattered about her, and recalled the rare blooms one of the knights had carried with them from their homeland. She was near-drowning in the anguish from the vessel before her, so much emotion, from one who was to be nothing but a shell. The petal-less stem drifted into her lap, all color slowly dissipating from their host. How a vessel learned that destroying a delicate flower against another had a message of pure hatred was beyond her, but the message was clear. There was a brief pang of grief, but she was quick to swallow it down. If this was the road the vessel chose to take, so be it.

  
"Are you quite done?"

  
The voice that came out of her cared to be more malicious than she liked it to be, but the damage was already done.

  
The vessel spun on its heel, storming angrily out of the room, caring not to cast a look over their shoulder as the White Lady said, "I look to see your apology, young one."

  
Their child they may be not, but they were still to be obedient and loyal to those who created them

.  
The climb out of the darkened tunnels was a trek, but was easily found when the outside light illuminated their path; very much so like the roots that guided them to her room. Outside everything was lush and green, low flying bugs soared overhead peacefully as they traversed their comfortable home. To their right, a three-pronged warrior laid still and lifeless, surrounded by a mound of mantises, desperately trying to reach the prize deep within the labyrinth. They gazed at them, mind wondering how such a being cared about someone so careless.

Something warm ran down their face, a hand reaching up to blot at it. Runny void seeped down and off, fading before it could hit the ground. It was then that they caught their breathing rate had elevated, and soon void ran out of their opposite eye, as they soon discovered. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't control their breathing, they couldn't stop the void leaking from their eyeholes down and off their face. They didn't feel hurt physically, but they still felt they had been skewered through the stomach by a mantis' spear. Slowly they couldn't see the beautiful gardens before them, as they wiped their face off, again and again, their breath hitching and their shoulders shaking.

  
They wouldn't know what this was called until much later, but the grief that capsized them left them trapped in that state for a long, long time.

**Author's Note:**

> when I first started playing hollow knight I thought of her as sympathetic and regretting her decisions, and liked her. but now after re-reading her game dialogue, its clear that she never had any real emotional attachment to the vessels until after everything was said and done. both she and the pale king have won the bad parent awards.


End file.
